Who Steps Up? Gender, Ethnic Background, Belonging, and Responsibility Attribution as Predictors of Cyberbullying Bystander Helping Intentions

This study examined associations among gender, ethnic background, sense of belonging, responsibility attribution, and university students’ self-reported helping intentions across three cyberbullying scenarios: denigration, exclusion, and harassment. A cross-sectional, scenario-based online survey was completed by 434 university students in mainland China. Independent-samples t tests and scenario-specific hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted. Women reported higher helping intentions than men across all scenarios, although the effects were small, and higher perpetrator-focused and environmental or contextual attribution in harassment. Han Chinese students reported higher helping intentions than students in the aggregated ethnic-minority group in denigration and harassment, higher perpetrator-focused attribution in these scenarios, higher environmental or contextual attribution in denigration and exclusion, and higher exclusion scores. By contrast, students in the aggregated ethnic-minority group reported higher victim-focused attribution in harassment. The final models yielded adjusted R 2 values ranging from .260 to .328. In denigration, gender, environmental or contextual attribution, inclusion, and exclusion positively predicted helping intentions, whereas victim-focused attribution was a negative predictor; the inclusion–helping association was moderated by gender and ethnic background. In exclusion, gender and environmental or contextual attribution positively predicted helping intentions, with no moderation. In harassment, perpetrator-focused attribution and exclusion positively predicted helping intentions; perpetrator-focused attribution was the strongest predictor, and its association with helping intentions was moderated by ethnic background. These findings support a scenario-contingent dual-domain framework in which responsibility appraisal and relational safety contribute differently across cyberbullying forms. The findings suggest that interventions may combine attributional reframing, anti-victim-blaming education, inclusive peer norms, and accessible reporting channels.